Leslie Shapiro

It’s quite tragic; a Stradivarius violin creates arguably the most beautiful musical sounds created by man, but it’s only a limited time before the instrument goes to sleep, to be silenced forever. After producing brilliant sounds and melodies for centuries, the tone of the violin changes and it becomes too fragile and delicate to play; effectively the instrument is silenced in deep slumber. Fortunately, phase one of an ambitious project has just wrapped up in an attempt to save the sound of a precious few of these string instruments for generations to come.

The Monster press conference at CES has typically been an electrifying, high-energy love-fest with the company’s boisterous CEO, Noel Lee, leading the charge. This year, the tone was definitely different as a dialed-back, subdued Lee announced this was the end of an era.

AT A GLANCEPlus
Audio playback from connected USB drive
Portable with optional external battery
Solid bass performance
Minus
Narrow soundstage at close range
Treble could be more transparent

THE VERDICT
The Concert is an affordable, feature-packed smart speaker with natural, warm sound.

The first smart speakers were cute little gadgets; no one mistook them for serious audio playback devices. Soon, they started getting bigger and somewhat better, with more attention paid to sound quality. Riva, a company known for multi-room speakers, just introduced the Concert, a compact smart speaker that combines the convenience of voice control with sound that can be taken seriously. Finally, a smart speaker worth listening to.

Relative newcomer Edifier is showing off an impressive array of new speakers at CES 2019. As the first serious audio brand from mainland China to make an impact on the world market, the brand is probably making some of the older, more established brands a bit nervous.

It’s kind of rare for a demo to really make an impression on me. Not that I’m jaded, but I’ve “been there, done that” with so much of today’s tech. Yet today at CES, Creative’s demonstration of their updated Super X-Fi holographic imagery for headphones pretty much blew me away.

Sennheiser is focusing on their AMBEO product group in a big way at CES with the new AMBEO Soundbar and AMBEO AR One headset. They also were proudly showing off the Momentum True Wireless earbuds which are creating quite a buzz with their excellent sound quality.

Audio icon Klipsch made an impressive showing at CES 2019 with an exciting new lineup of soundbars that harken back to the brand's horn-loaded speaker technology, along with new WiSA wireless speakers, and a new lineup of headphone and in-ear earphones.

Xperi, the parent company behind DTS, and IMAX announced at CES 2019 that the IMAX Enhanced program announced in September is gaining momentum. The program combines hardware and digitally re-mastered 4K HDR content for a new standard in high-end home theater.

Just because listeners are young, their age shouldn’t exclude them from high-quality audio. More significant, though, they should be even more concerned about protecting their hearing than adults. Puro Sound Labs has made it their mission to protect young ears, and they are at CES showing off their latest ANC, volume-limiting headphones for kids and young adults.

As usual, LG kicked off the 2019 CES press day with a bang. Or should we say XBOOM? In addition to showing off some amazingly cool new soundbars LG launched a series of exciting audio products in the XBOOM product line. Both the soundbars and XBOOM products reflect LG’s devotion to great sounding products with innovative features.